


Inevitable Things

by storybycorey



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s07e17 All Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybycorey/pseuds/storybycorey
Summary: Post all things ficYou wonder whether Robert Frost ever envisioned his words floating through the mind of a terrified woman at midnight, about to make the biggest decision of her life.





	Inevitable Things

He’s waiting for you.

For years you’ve known this, for years you’ve looked into his expectant eyes yet whispered _I’m not ready_ with yours.  For years you’ve known the decision—where, when, _if_ — is yours to make.

It was during the cancer you first realized how he felt, his lips at your cheek and an implant missing beneath your skin.  He’d have taken you then, frail and dying or not.  Maybe you’d have let him, had your body been your own at that point, had you not been tied up to tubes in a hospital bed.

You knew then that he’ll wait for you, for as long as you need, forever if you ask him to.  

You hope you don’t ask him to.

When the cancer was gone, his lips weren’t at your cheek anymore, but still you knew.  No words spoken, no anvil-heavy hallway declarations. It wasn’t even that anything had outwardly changed.  The knowledge was just _there_ , it just… _was_.  

Inevitable things aren’t always obvious.  

_Just say the word, Scully,_ his eyes say each time they look into yours.  

The anvil-heavy declarations came later.  And maybe, looking back, you were a fool not to seize those hallway opportunities full of weighty, beautiful words, full of reasons to finally give in.

But you’re overly cautious. Excessively. _Exceedingly_.

And he’s overly patient. Thank God.

_When, Scully?_ his eyes ask from time to time, late at night as you say goodnight before twin blue doors, hotel keys dangling between tired fingers.   _Tomorrow?  Next year?_

Sometimes you wonder whether you’ve already missed your chance, whether yesterday was the day and it passed you by.  Other times you wonder, fingers slick and frantic, if the buildup has gone on too long, if things are destined to crumble under expectations seven years old and growing.

But then there are times, when your past comes calling, when years upon years’ worth of decisions collide, when there seems no other answer but _now_ , but _tonight_ , but _him_.

Him.

….

It’s midnight when you wake, desk lamp dimmed and aquarium gurgling. He’s gone but you smell him in the air, in the fibers of the blanket tucked beneath your chin.

It hurt telling Daniel he’d waited a decade for a girl who doesn’t exist anymore.  It hurt telling him goodbye, again, closing the door on a life you used to think you wanted more than anything.

But Daniel… Daniel never once laughed with you in the rain.

Daniel never once carried handfuls of tissues in his pockets _just in case._

Daniel never once said your name in a hallway while you had tears in your eyes, made you ache so profoundly you could barely breathe.  

Daniel… was never Mulder.

You realize, though you’ve probably known it deep down inside for years, that nobody will ever be Mulder.  That you’ll never look at another man again without secretly thinking _but he never once…_ That you’ll base each man’s worth on whether he’d teach you to play baseball at 9 PM on a Thursday night, tell you _hips before hands_ as though you’ve never picked up a bat in your life.

Mulder though… Mulder is Mulder.

And Mulder— the one whose eyes have said _I’ll wait for you, Scully_ a thousand times or more— well, he’s _here_ , just a smallish, messyish apartment’s length away.

And he’s still waiting.

The blanket slides to the floor as you rise.  You think about the fish, observing the two of you for the past seven years—ebbing, flowing, toward and away from each other.  You doubt these are even the same fish from the beginning.  It’s taken you longer than a molly’s lifespan to come to a decision.

You feel each of those seven years as you cross over his floor, one step a basement, the next a hallway, a hospital room, a rental car, the final one a SnoCat so cold, at times you can still feel the chill in your bones.  

At the threshold of his bedroom door, you pause, smooth your hands over your skirt. Years ago, Daniel had been angry when you told him you were pursuing a career with the FBI.  

Yesterday’s clothes litter the rug and just barely he snores.  As you move to the foot of the bed, your shadow crosses over his face and a wave of emotion washes so fiercely through your body, it brings you close to tears.  You’ve loved him forever it seems, you just haven’t known it.

_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood… and I—I took the one less travelled by…_

You wonder whether Robert Frost ever envisioned his words floating through the mind of a terrified woman at midnight, about to make the biggest decision of her life.

Trembling fingers slip cashmere the color of clover from your torso, then polyester dark as night from your hips.  Nylons shed themselves like a second skin onto the floor.  You know you should take time for folding, but _god, his skin glows in the moonlight_ and you’re incapable of practicality while processing that.

Every choice you’ve ever made has led you to this moment, and that’s almost too overwhelming to comprehend.  If you’d added extra creamer to your coffee this morning, would you have woken ten minutes ago and slipped out the door?  

Your tongue sweeps over your lips as satin straps slide down your shoulders, ivory lace nudges from your thighs to your shins. The air from his bedroom (the same air pulling in and out of his lungs, the same air playing across his bare chest) settles upon your naked skin, and you can’t help your eyes slipping closed.

This is never how you imagined this happening—quiet and still.  You’ve always assumed your breaking point would be accompanied by fireworks, explosions, not the bubbling of a fish tank and his quiet, snuffled breaths.

Slowly rounding the bed, you stand silently not two feet away from him. Your fingers flit lightly across your bare belly, your thighs. One of his tshirts lies beneath your feet, and you curl your toes against the soft, worn cotton.  He kissed you just months ago, beneath the new year’s ball.  You watch his lips in sleep and re-imagine the sensation, wonder whether they’re as soft tonight as they were back then. Wonder how you ever could have asked him to wait this long.

Even in sleep you can feel him, _waiting_.

Your chest— it rises and it falls. You close your eyes and count slowly to ten.  Your heart beats so loud, it’s surely enough to wake him.

And then…

“Oh Scully…,” in the barest whisper.  Eyes still shut, you suck in a shaky breath, focus on the fabric beneath your toes.  There’s a rustle of sheets, the barest brush of 300 thread-count against your shin.

You open your eyes and he’s there, sitting on the edge of his bed before you, rumpled from sleep and so beautiful you ache—the Mulder that nobody else is, looking at you the way nobody else does.

His gaze is awestruck but tender. After all this time, you’ve finally rendered him speechless.  His eyes though—oh, they speak volumes. _Are you sure?_ he asks with them, and though your nod would be imperceptible to anyone else, he understands:   _I’m ready, Mulder_.

With a hand held out, he draws you closer, pulls you to stand between his knees.  The hairs on his legs tickle the outsides of your thighs and you can hardly breathe.  “My god, I’ve waited…,” he whispers.  

“I know…,” you murmur before he can finish, and his eyes fall to your lips, your neck.  They wander lower still—slowly, reverently.  Surely he can hear your quickened breaths, can see the way your chest jumps with each beat of your heart.  You’re dizzy, almost light-headed.

Without warning, his fingers skim lightly over your abdomen, and you step back with a gasp.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, pulling his hand away.

“No,” you counter, quickly shaking your head, “No, I’m just…” You tuck your chin to your chest, step forward again.  He’s waited so long.

You reach for his hand, entwine your fingers gently with his. An hour ago you were dozing on his couch, and now… now you’re here.  You meet his eyes.  “Touch me…,” you whisper, and place his hand lightly back on your abdomen.  “Please.”

He flattens his palm to your belly, drags it slowly across to your hip.  He’s touched you before, but never, _oh_ , never like this.  It intoxicates you—his touch—and your lips slacken as you watch his face, as the both of you concentrate on fingertips trailing over skin.  

Leaning forward, he presses his lips to the small puckered scar left there by another man, and your startled intake of breath is shockingly loud.  

“Shhh,” he hushes, thumb sweeping back across the scar then travelling further.  Police sirens wail in the distance.  You’ve never felt safer.

“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, fingers tracing feather-light hieroglyphics across your ribs.

“Of course I am,” you breathe. “Mulder… It’s _you_.”

His lips meet your sternum then, hands reaching behind to cup your scapulae.  He holds you so gently, you could cry.  His hair once sleep-mussed is now Scully-mussed, your fingers tunneling through it before you even realize they’re there.

With a quiet moan, he slides his mouth against your skin—along your clavicle, between your breasts— until your quickened breaths become pants, until your knees threaten to buckle right out from beneath you.  Headlights illuminate the room then just as quickly disappear, and in that second, his fingertips find the swell of your breast, his tongue finds your nipple.  

“Oh god,” you gasp, fingers clutching at his hair and back arching to meet him.  His mouth _Jesus Christ,_ his mouth.  And his hands—artist’s hands, pianist’s hands, take-Scully’s-breath-away hands.  Your knees give up the fight, finally buckling, and he gathers you into his lap, shifts back on the bed so those same buckled knees now rest beside his thighs on the sheets.  The hairs on his chest brush your nipples and it comes close to breaking you.

“Scully…,” he breathes, “Dana…” His forehead finds yours, slides into place the way it’s done dozens of times before.  Never though, in those dozens of times, did it feel like _this_.

You breathe.  He breathes.

He’s everywhere—above, around, beneath— _everywhere_.  He’s the most passionate man you’ve even met, the most brilliant, the most gentle.  The most _Mulder_.  

His hands are in your hair and then at your cheeks.  You love him so desperately it scares you.  You loved him desperately then, too, out in his hallway, but it hadn’t been right… _This_ though, this is right.  

His breath is shaky as it hits your chin, and yours answers back just as tremulously.  Arms around his neck, you trace the tip of your nose down his cheek.  “I think…,” you whisper, tilting so your lips graze his jaw, his chin, “I think maybe you’re trembling, too…”

His lips hover just barely over your cheek, drift their way closer to your mouth.  Closer.  And closer. His breath is so hot, _my_ _god,_ you can’t breathe.  “Of course I am,” he murmurs, echoing your words from minutes ago, “It’s _you_ ,” and his mouth lands on yours.

Soft at first, oh, soft, as soft as you remember from new year’s, but this isn’t new year’s, not even close.  He cradles your skull and kisses you like Daniel never did, like no one ever did, like only Mulder _could_.  You hum against his lips, breathless, aching. You fall in love with his nose as it bumps against your own, kiss him from every angle possible just to see how it feels. His tongue finds the roof of your mouth and you whimper.

He pulls you closer, hands on your rear, until your _soft_ is pressed directly against his _hard_. You gasp against his mouth, and when he moans, you can’t help but press yourself further.  His hands, your hands—they wander, endlessly, exploring seven years’ worth of skin as thoroughly as possible.  The curve beneath his jaw beckons, and you taste it for what seems forever.

All sense of time and space is lost in his arms. There are only mouths and hands, soft quickened breaths, your name said in the most beautiful, gravelly voice.  No gravity, no relativity, only him, only Mulder.  In ten minutes, he’s unraveled every one of your precious laws of physics, and it’s glorious.

He lies you down, looms deliciously above you.  Somehow, amidst it all, he’s managed to remove his boxers, and his hard length against your thigh takes your breath away.  He radiates heat, and your heart beats faster than you’d ever have thought possible.

“Thank you…,” you murmur breathlessly, gazing up into soft, green eyes, “…for waiting. I know I—”

He leans down, interrupts you with a kiss so perfect it brings tears to your eyes. His face is serious when he pulls away, and you remember words like _touchstone_ , like _constant_ , you remember drugged declarations from hospital beds.  

“For you…,” he brushes a stray hair from your cheek, cocks his head the way only Mulder can do, “Jesus, Scully, I’d have waited forever.”

You pull him down to meet you, press kisses to his lips, to his cheeks, scrape your nails through his hair until he shudders.  Aliens and bounty hunters, monsters and slick, black oil; his weight on top of you is the realest thing you’ve felt in years.  With lips against his ear, you tell him, “Mulder, I’m tired of waiting.”

_When, Scully?_ his eyes have asked you thousands of times.   _Next week? Next year?_

He pulls back, looks down at you from above.  Through tear-stained lashes, you nod your head and smile:   _Now_.

There are quickened breaths and fumbling hands, slickened fingers and soft, quiet apologies.  There’s his hand at your hip and his knees between your thighs, and as he presses his way inside, _dear_ _god_ there’s Mulder Mulder Mulder. You pull your lip between your teeth, and when his hips start to move, you leave ten perfect crescent moons on his shoulders.

It’s quieter than you’d have imagined—you’re both at a loss for words for once—but his grunts and soft moans, the way he breathes against your cheek, the whimpers he coaxes from your throat when you aren’t quite expecting it, _oh_ , those more than make up for any words not there.  

It’s his skin that gets you though, the hot, silky mess of it pressed against your own, the muscles of his back playing beneath your fingers.  Tightening your grip, you open your mouth against his neck and whisper, “More.”  

He stops holding back, gives you every single bit of himself.  You choke on his name with each undulation of his body.  What finally draws you over the edge though isn’t the slam of his hips, it isn’t the way his teeth press hotly against your shoulder, it’s his voice, that wonderful Mulder voice, the one that isn’t Daniel’s or anyone else’s, gasping  your name with his eyes squeezed shut.  You come with your fingers clutched tightly around his neck, your mouth pressed to his pulse.

….

You remember realizing he wanted you, aroused at the thought of his touch but denying you wanted the same.  You didn’t realize then that it was never something you could fight.  You didn’t understand _inevitability_ then, didn’t understand you were destined for each other the moment you stepped foot out of that elevator and into the basement.  

There are choices you make in life—breaking things off with a professor, accepting an interview with the FBI, putting a tablespoon of creamer and not a drop more into your coffee— but inevitable things are funny that way.  They happen whether you make the right choices or not.  You can tell yourself over and over (and over) again that falling in love with your partner is a bad idea, but then one night, after an endless number of choices, you’ll drink tea with him on his sofa and later climb into his bed.  

One night, you’ll finally accept the inevitable.

Seven years ago, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and you— you took the elevator down into the basement.

And _that_ has made all the difference.


End file.
